"Everyone's a winner, baby," sang Hot Chocolate back in the late 1970s, and it's a line applied often to popular culture since.
Football? Perhaps not so much. And yet there was clearly more than one winner, and even a loser which could take plenty away from GMHBA Stadium on Thursday night after a pulsating game between Geelong and Western Bulldogs.
The biggest victor? Us, the audience. We've had a few candidates for game of the year lately, and the Cats' 14-point win was another genuine contender, a tremendous, open but still physical game in which both teams had runs of momentum and resultant goals, and the likely winner seemed to change every quarter.
The aggregate of 240 points was the second-highest in 90 games played thus far in 2025. The Bulldogs clawed back a five-goals-plus deficit to draw level with just under eight minutes remaining.
Geelong key forward pair Jeremy Cameron and Shannon Neale kicked 11 goals between them. Cats' speedster Max Holmes kicked arguably the Goal of the Year, a brilliant solo effort.
Bulldog on-baller Ed Richards, well held in the first half, exploded in the second, his third term a masterclass in midfield dominance. Dogs' key defender Rory Lobb launched some breathtaking intercept dashes which not only saved goals but helped set them up for his teammates.
And even the much-anticipated coming together of Geelong star Bailey Smith with his old Bulldog teammates lived up to the hype, Smith rising to the challenge with a terrific individual game, his season continuing to engender memories of Patrick Dangerfield's first season with the Cats, nearly a decade ago, which ended in a Brownlow Medal.
In real terms, of course Geelong emerged triumphant, the Cats staying in touch with the top four and overcoming a five-day break to win.
There are rivals with better records than Geelong's 7-4, and perhaps a couple whose absolute best is better, but there's a dependability about the Cats in the clutch moments which always makes them at worst a "keep safe" when it comes to premiership speculation, and for some of us more bullish about their flag prospects, more optimistic still.
Significantly, none of those four losses thus far in 2025 has been by any more than 18 points. And the wins have been notable, not just beating up on the less-able, but having now also put away three of the top five flag fancies, the Bulldogs, Collingwood and Hawthorn, the other one of that group besides themselves, Brisbane, only beating the Cats by nine points at the Gabba.
They're flexible and adaptable, Chris Scott's group. Take midfield, which by all rights should have been fighting an uphill battle on Thursday night without Dangerfield and another clearance winner in Jack Bowes, up against the Dogs' larger group containing the likes of Marcus Bontempelli, Tom Liberatore, Richards and Matt Kennedy.
Smith and Holmes rose to the challenge by pulling out two superb individual games. But so, too, did Irishman Oisin Mullin in keeping the clamps on Richards early. Also small forwards Gryan Miers and Shaun Mannagh's capacity to tackle, harass and keep the heat on the Dogs.
That pressure paid off brilliantly as the Bulldogs continued to turn the ball over under pressure exiting defence, Geelong capitalising on those gains with quick and clean delivery forward.
The Cats by half-time had scored 51 of their 70 points from turnover, and many of those chances were converted via easy shots at goal. The significance of that? A scoreline of 20.7 to the opponents' 16.17 says it all, really, a 14-point win despite six fewer scores.
But even for the Western Bulldogs, poor kicking aside, and that is a flaw which can be remedied easily enough, there was still plenty for coach Luke Beveridge to like about this performance. Yes, even beyond managing to give Kane Cornes a spray on his way to the coaches box pre-game.
While the Dogs conceded their highest score of the season, most of their defensive ranking numbers remain sound.
It is opposition scores per inside 50s which is the outlier here, the Dogs ranked only 12th in that category whilst still a healthy fourth for points conceded. And it was the fly in the ointment on Thursday, too, Geelong with only 51 inside 50s, but scoring from 27 of them, at 53 per cent, significantly worse than even the lowest-ranked West Coast's 48.8 per cent.
But the Bulldogs are doing well in pretty much every other area. Prior to this game, they were the highest-scoring team, and their 16.17 against the Dogs was the fifth time in the past six games they've passed the 100-point mark.
That, too, without three of last year's five top goalkickers in Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, Sam Darcy and Cody Weightman, Darcy at least on track to return perhaps within a month.
Beveridge's capacity to make do with what he has is impressing again, Buku Khamis looking more and more dangerous in attack, Kennedy again finding the target against the Cats, and the Dogs coming close enough to a third straight win at the Cattery even with Bontempelli relatively subdued in the second half.
Like the Cats, there's a consistency about the Bulldogs this year, their 6-5 record not telling the full story about their season, none of their five losses by any more than 21 points, and four of them by 16 or less.
That's reflected in a percentage of 126.5, third best in the competition. And again, the only two teams with a better record on the percentage front, Gold Coast and Collingwood, are two teams the Dogs came within two straight kicks of defeating.
No wonder Beveridge wasn't trying any false "tough talk" afterwards about where his side is at. Just on halfway through the season, with a nicely-timed week off thanks to a bye, the Dogs couldn't be a lot better placed to launch a serious assault on something very significant this September.
If that happens, you'd think there's every chance Thursday night's match will be repeated. And that's yet another win out of this game for everyone who loves to watch attacking, positive and higher-scoring football.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY